Leonard Cohen's “Born With The Gift Of A Golden Voice” At Risk For Misinterpretation As Narcissistic Boast
In many ways, it was another routine case of human error, the careless misinterpretation of Leonard Cohen’s mock boast in Tower Of Song, “I was born with the gift of a golden voice.”
This time, however, the assumption that this line was a sincerely meant narcissistic declaration on the part of Cohen ended in tragedy. From the post, Did Cohen Plagiarize or Allude to Longfellow?, I have excerpted the pertinent lines:
I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes the ideas and even the precise words of Longfellow. Also, I realize that a lot of art plagiarizes or borrows from art the has come before it, but Cohen’s usage bothers me nonetheless. I wonder whether he figured that few members of a modern audience would recognize his pilfering. Cohen’s egotism also bothers me:
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
His egotism would not bother me if his writing were more original and creative. To his credit, he does place Hank Williams one hundred floors above him in the Tower of Song out of respect. Bob Dylan has called Williams the greatest songwriter of all time.
The thesis of the post is that Cohen plagiarizes, alludes to, or pilfers (the terms preferred by the post’s author) from Longfellow’s Mezzo Cammin.1 That sonnet is typically interpreted as Longfellow’s lament that he has not “fulfilled / The aspiration of my youth, to build / Some tower of song with lofty parapet,” i.e., he has not yet created the monument in poetry he had hoped to write in his youth.2 Longfellow’s complete poem and the lyrics to Cohen’s Tower Of Song follow:
Mezzo Cammin by Longfellow
Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,–
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.–
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
Tower Of Song by Leonard Cohen
Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song
I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here
In the Tower of Song
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all
I’m standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don’t let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song
Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter but of this you may be
sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song
I see you standing on the other side
I don’t know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We’ll never have to lose it again
Now I bid you farewell, I don’t know when I’ll be back
There moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone
I’ll be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the Tower of Song
Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song
The shame of this is that the possible influence of Longfellow’s poem on Leonard Cohen’s Tower Of Song is a potentially interesting idea. That the author’s misunderstanding of Cohen’s self-denigrating line led instead to accusations of literary theft based entirely on the phrase, “tower of song,” that appears in both works and the “shared theme of the speaker growing old and lamenting the joys of youth that he has lost,” a motif that is extraordinarily common and generic in poetry and one that obviously predates Longfellow, seems unfortunate.3
By way of comparison, a discussion held on a forum at Rutopia.info three years ago noted the similarity between the same works, Longfellow’s Mezzo Cammin and Cohen’s Tower of Song, yet no sensationalist claims of plagiarism were launched.
I do not know whether Leonard Cohen’s Tower of Song owes anything to Longfellow’s Mezzo Cammin. I do know that charges of literary theft require support by far more substantial evidence than is presented in the referenced post.
Preventing Future Catastrophes
In the past, a correspondent who had the same misunderstanding of the line, “I was born with the gift of a golden voice,” complained that he could not be expected to know the inside jokes about every entertainer, politician, author, etc. At that time, I worked out two possible remedies.
The first tactic, which I use frequently, is maintaining a high degree of suspicion that I may have misunderstood something and running a Google search on any important, unfamiliar issue before publishing a post. While certainly not foolproof, a Google search of the terms, “Leonard Cohen” and “born with the gift of a golden voice,” in this case, reveals that almost all critics, reviewers, and feature writers and certainly Cohen’s concert audiences regard “I was born with the gift of a golden voice” as a self-depreciating joke.4 To make the search even easier and more fun, one can add “joke” or “irony” to the first two search terms.
The second possibility is the Heck Of A Guy Ironic Security Advisory System.
- That the argument is preceded by “I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes … ” is a bit like saying, “I cannot tell whether Smith has threatened or beats his wife, but his treatment of her bothers me nonetheless.” Going on to “wonder whether he [Cohen] figured that few members of a modern audience would recognize his pilfering” effectively belies any professions of doubt re Cohen’s nefarious ways. In any case, given that Cohen was a successfully published poet and received a university education in literature, it seems reasonable to assume that he would recognize that someone somewhere (say, a graduate student desperately trying to find a topic for his dissertation) might recognize material lifted from a well known and much taught poet like Longfellow and inserted in a contemporary song published with hopes of wide distribution.↩
- That Longfellow hasn’t been able to construct his monumental tower of song while Cohen is imprisoned in a tower of song controlled by someone else does not seem like a parallel use of the image to me, but that type of analysis is beyond the scope of this post and, in any case, appears to have little to do with the accusastions of literary pilfering brought against Cohen.↩
- I suspect I could make an equally valid (or, more accurately, equally invalid) case to support the hypothesis that Leonard Cohen plagiarized his song, Hallelujah, from the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah.↩
- The pertinent stanza follows:
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond,
They tied me to this table right here in the Tower of Song.In addition to my doubt that Cohen was or thinks he was born with a golden voice, I also don’t believe, personnel costs being what they are, that Cohen was attended by 27 angels, even if they were outsourced “from the Great Beyond.” On the other hand, I remain uncertain whether he’s into activities like being “tied to a table.”↩
But then and there Americans not clinging to the north eastern Atlantic coast have always been subject to the penalties of having undergone radical irony bypass in early life. The sophomoronic exegesis about Longfellow and Cohen is but one lovely example! Congratulations on exposing this matter!
I am the author of the original post.
Your misreading and misinterpretation of what I wrote is bizarre and unfortunate. Your response, based on your misreading is callow and unnecessarily spiteful. You use multiple instances of flawed logic and I will expose them below.
First, you try to make a casual claim between me accusing Cohen of an egotistical boast and me accusing Cohen of alluding to or plagiarizing Longfellow. This is poor logic. You made this accusation when you wrote, “That the author’s misunderstanding of Cohen’s self-denigrating line led instead to accusations of literary theft . . .†My claim that Cohen is egotistical had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to write the post or to question whether Cohen alluded to or plagiarized Longfellow. They are thoroughly unrelated comments on Cohen. My discussion of Cohen’s ego comes later in the post as an afterthought. I find it bizarre that you concentrate on those few lines and then assign it the ability to retroactively inspire my noticing of the similarity between Cohen and Longfellow. Please, I beg you, show me the logical connection between believing that Cohen is egotistical (a point I don’t really care about at all) and believing that Cohen alluded to or stole from Longfellow. Furthermore, my belief that Cohen is egotistical comes more from when I hear him speak than from that one line. The last few seconds of the U2 video is an example. I believe he speaks a lot of false humility. Regardless, as I said, I don’t actually give a damn whether he is egotistical. In fact, I believe that he deserves to be egotistical because of his poetic, musical, and popular success.
Second, I interpret the line, “I was born like this, I had no choice / I was born with the gift of a golden voice†differently than you do. I find both of our interpretations to be valid. I believe that line refers to his ability to write songs and poems, not his ability to literally sing them. For instance, you might say that Homer has the gift of a golden voice, although we cannot hear him now at all. My reading of this line is based on the larger context of the poem, which houses its author, Cohen, in some imaginary and immortal tower of song, in which presumably numerous great poets throughout history reside. Nevertheless, I wish to emphasize that the interpretation of this line has absolutely nothing to do with the main point of my post. Your concentration on it was bizarre and distracting. You created two huge, obnoxious, childish graphics that focused on this small portion of my post rather than the substance of my post.
The thesis of my post, as you admit, is that Cohen “plagiarizes, alludes to, or pilfers from Longfellow.†I have no reason to back down from this thesis. In fact, your post did nothing to contradict that thesis. The two poems share the same phrase, “tower of song†and the same sentiment. That is substantial enough evidence to conclude that there is a likelihood that Cohen either plagiarized or alluded to Longfellow. I consider “plagiarize†and “pilfer†to be equivalent. .I consider an allusion to be an acknowledgement of inspiration. So, it is likely that Cohen was either plagiarizing or alluding to Longfellow. You make a conclusion about my post that I never make. I never conclude that Cohen plagiarized Longfellow. In fact, the title of my post has a question mark at the end of it, which signifies my belief that it is an open question.
Is it more likely that Cohen plagiarized or was inspired by/was alluding to Longfellow? I believe it is more likely that he was inspired by and was alluding to Longfellow. This is a reasonable conclusion. I also think that your logical thought process would bring you down the same avenue. It is an open question whether Cohen plagiarized and you have presented no evidence to close this question.
Furthermore, on my blog you left a comment. A portion of that comment said, “Other than the “tower of song†phrase, which, as you point out dates back at least to Dante’s Divine Comedia…†You misread what I wrote. The title of Longfellow’s poem, Mezzo Cammin, alludes to the first few lines from the Divine Comedia. However, Dante does not use the phrase “tower of song.†As far as I know, that phrase is a Longfellow invention.
I agree with your first footnote, namely that an educated student of poetry would recognize his plagiarism/allusion. I don’t dispute this. I claimed, “I wonder whether he figured that few members of a modern audience would recognize his pilfering.†The logic of your footnote is poor because it assumes that I made an argument I did not make. My argument allows for the logic of your footnote when it says, “few members of a modern audience.†I specifically wrote “few†in order to account for students of poetry. Nevertheless, the point was that most people would not catch the plagiarism/allusion.
One of the larger points of my posts was to point out the connection and chain of poets throughout history. We see Dante tied to Longfellow tied to Cohen. We also see, as I mentioned, Guthrie tied to Springsteen (and to Dylan, of course). These connections usually occur in the form of allusions that make it clear that a certain phrase or sentiment is being borrowed or updated by the more modern poet. My dispute with Cohen is that he gives no such credit to Longfellow and that consider the phrase “Tower of Song†has become intimately associated with him that he ought to.
Before you assault someone’s argument, you ought to practice crafting more cogent arguments in order to make the assault potent. As it stands, your assault is impotent.
Also, please have the courage to blog under your real name, particularly when mindlessly assaulting someone you do not know.
My post specifically said, “I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes the ideas and even the precise words of Longfellow.” I am unsure of how this phrase is ambiguous or how it would differ from your interpretation of the evidence that I presented.
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
“I cannot tell…”
Billy Joe Mills…. I suspect that you are, in fact, Niles Crane…
Alan
I too read Billy Joe’s post as a tad ludricrous — and continue to get your usual humor and good wit from your mocking of it.
Seems as if your “little pins” did puncture him a bit though.
Keep up the good work!
Gracious. Well, let me address a few of these points.
If my “misreading and misinterpretation of what [you] wrote is bizarre and unfortunate” then at least the bizarre part should be evident to any cogent reader so you have nothing to worry about.
It did indeed seem to me that there was a link between you “accusing Cohen of an egotistical boast and me [you] accusing Cohen of alluding to or plagiarizing Longfellow.” Here’s my mistake. I read your lines about plagiarism (“I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes the ideas and even the precise words of Longfellow. Also, I realize that a lot of art plagiarizes or borrows from art the has come before it, but Cohen’s usage bothers me nonetheless. I wonder whether he figured that few members of a modern audience would recognize his pilfering.”) followed within the same paragraph by “Cohen’s egotism also bothers me.” I suppose one can position two completely disconnected ideas in adjoining sentences in the same paragraph, but it does make for awkward reading.
Your next line (following the two lines from Tower of Song) is “His egotism would not bother me if his writing were more original and creative” I dunno, that last line of yours sure makes it seem as though there’s a connection between the charge of “egotism” and the charge that his writing is not original.
Re your comment, “Regardless, as I said, I don’t actually give a damn whether he is egotistical,” how does that jibe with “Cohen’s egotism also bothers me?”
You are absolutely correct that I misread what you wrote and that Dante does not use the phrase “tower of song.”
Re “Also, please have the courage to blog under your real name, particularly when mindlessly assaulting someone you do not know.” Thanks for the suggestion but (1) I think I’ll post on my own blog under whatever name I prefer, especially since my “real name” is listed in dozens of places on this blog. I left my email address and my web site URL. Did you have a problem finding me? (2) How do I know “Billy Joe Mills” is your real name? The answer, of course, is I don’t. More to the point, I don’t care since, as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t anything personal about this – I just don’t agree with what you wrote. That’s why I didn’t mention your name in my post. You may well be a fine fellow who is beloved by all, loyal to a fault, and kind to animals, but that changes nothing about what you wrote. (3) the “mindlessly assaulting someone you do not know” part is troublesome – first, did my post really seem mindless to you? Second, I did disagree with you, but “assaulting” seems a bit over the top. Third, I have no idea what the fact that I don’t know you has to do with anything.
Re “The two poems share the same phrase, “tower of song†and the same sentiment. That is substantial enough evidence to conclude that there is a likelihood that Cohen either plagiarized or alluded to Longfellow. … I never conclude that Cohen plagiarized Longfellow. In fact, the title of my post has a question mark at the end of it, which signifies my belief that it is an open question.” Even if one stipulates for the point of this discussion that the sentiments in both poems are the similar (they certainly are identical), the duplication of a felicitous phrase in two verses dealing with growing older hardly seems to basis for a charge of literary poaching.
More worrisome, however, is your contention that you “conclude that there is a likelihood that Cohen either plagiarized or alluded to Longfellow” yet “never conclude that Cohen plagiarized Longfellow.” That seems an extremely fine distinction.
Re “My post specifically said, ‘I cannot tell whether Cohen alludes to or plagiarizes the ideas and even the precise words of Longfellow.’ I am unsure of how this phrase is ambiguous or how it would differ from your interpretation of the evidence that I presented.” I’m afraid that if this isn’t obvious by now, I doubt I can help you.
Re “I cannot tell…â€
“I cannot tell…â€
“I cannot tell…â€
“I cannot tell…â€
“I cannot tell…â€
“I cannot tell…â€
Is this your version of, let’s see, what did you call it, … oh yes, “huge, obnoxious, childish graphics?”
Thanks for writing.
Billy, it’s very easy to write something unclear, full of true or false hesitations and then blaming people for misunderstandings. If You “cannot tell” something, just don’t tell this. If You don’t know something, use the question mark instead of problematic, as You see, form “I cannot tell…”. Especially when You mind to quarrel with people who CAN tell.
About interpretation of “golden voice”, let me quote the Author:
“I’m always interested and I might say even delighted when anybody covers one of my songs because I’ve always felt that my own voice is very limited”
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVFz91-mEls&eurl=http://1heckofaguy.com/tag/leonard-cohen/page/3/&feature=player_embedded, 1:50). Maybe this fragment of lyrics is some kind of experiment, a challenge for the audience… I don’t know, I don’t feel comfortable with it. If it’s an irony, I would definitely put it on a very top of Allan’s colorful scale. The fact of necessity of such posts as forgoing does not give evidence in favor of it.
Hmmm. I attempted to post this on Billy Joe’s site but my post is still awaiting moderator approval, even though another post, submitted after mine, passed muster. I retried my post, but while I wait to see if Billy Joe thinks what I have to say has value, I make the same post here –
This blog showed up on my newsreader this morning which is set to all things Leonard Cohen. When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was happy to note the DrHGuy (well known in the Cohen community) made some headway in debunking these outrageous claims about Cohen. As Cohen fans, we are accustom to folks not knowing who Leonard is or dismissing him as depressing. But plagiarist?? The man who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? The man who received Canada’s highest honor of Companion in the Order of Canada? The man whose latest book of poetry, Book of Longing, was the first poetry book to reach number one on the best seller list in Canada? That man a plagiarist? Say it ain’t so. Well, it ain’t. Leonard Cohen’s work is studied at the highest level of academia and Cohen scholars have noted, discussed, analyzed and marveled at Cohen’s skills. Of course, these passages from Longfellow have been noticed, noted and discussed. I would direct you to the newsgroup -
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.music.leonard-cohen/browse_thread/thread/12c050b37cad2d1e/8612d963d9ac23e9?hl=en&q=longfellow&lnk=ol&#
and in particular the discussion of Longfellow, Donne and Shakespeare -
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.music.leonard-cohen/browse_thread/thread/12c050b37cad2d1e/484dc31d5e0361aa?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=longfellow#484dc31d5e0361aa
Finally, no discussion of this issue would be complete without mentioning one scholar in particular, Judith Fitzgerald, who has studied and written (and still writes) about the nuts and bolts and breathtaking beauty of Leonard’s work. She is an award-winning poet herself and a wildly gifted writer. Check out Notes Towards a Definition of a Masterpiece (http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/masterpiece.html). And if I have managed to peak your interest about Leonard Cohen, visit The Leonard Cohen Files (http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/) for everything you need to know about the man who just returned from a European concert tour where he earned acclaim for his “gift of a golden voice.â€
Sadly, this discourse disturbs me. As a writer, I deeply appreciate the timbre of another author’s voice, and to say that their rhythmic accents or narrative visualizations in no way affect my own dissertations, would be preposterous.
I can give one clear example of this. As a teen, I drew a sympathy card for my brother when his puppy got run over by a car. I told him that she would be forever waiting for him, next to the tree we buried her by. I encouraged him to expect a “fern of great beauty,†in that very spot. (I am paraphrasing, because I don’t recall the exact words I used).
My family appreciated the card, but told me that I had used the ending of the story, “Where the Red Fern Grows.†I could not recall having read the book, until my brother brought out his copy and the story once again began to unfold. Turns out, I had nearly quoted the author’s ending of the book word for word. After my embarrassment subsided, I realized that I was grateful for the fact that this story had touched me deeply enough to recall its truths after so long a time.
Even today, I find myself using phrases in my writings that are not common to my manner of speaking. I attribute this to those authors who coined phrases that subconsciously implanted themselves into the deep and quiet pools of my soul. I cannot help but remain grateful to all those who left such an indelible mark that their truths are reflected in my current musings. It is my hope that these concepts continually be expounded upon, by myself and by others. If, by chance, my words eventually help someone identify with the original contributor, (long ago forgotten by me), I will have become but a peg in its part of a completed wheel. What a grand place to be.
Thus, I harbor no ill-will toward Mr. Cohen for happing upon a cadence that brought him full-circle to someone who was, in all probability, one of his mentors. In fact, I can envision LC smiling to himself as he too, recognized the similarities and whispered a candid, “Thank you,†to Mr. Longfellow.
Personally, I am grateful that I live in a time where I can refresh myself with the satire of Mark Twain, the common sense of Einstein or the historical accuracies of Jean Auel. “Perchance,†I may also peruse the somber, yet grandiose words of a fine singer whose songs indicate that he too longs for a time when we will stop worrying about words like plagiarism and instead acknowledge words like “honor.†In my mind, when any writer/artist/songwriter honors the words of the greats before them, when they allow their work to affect them deeply enough to emulate them, the original artist’s work lives on, in infamy.
o zbiegu zbiegów okoliczności blogowych | z szuflady nocnego grajka // Dec 4, 2008 at 6:52 pm
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